Pete Alonso sent a towering ball to center field, an area of McKethan Stadium where baseballs normally go to die but Alonso’s didn’t, finding a home in the television tower behind the wall for a two-run dinger.
The Florida Gators (36-6, 13-5 SEC) scored in each of the first three innings and four pitchers combined to hold Georgia to a lone run, cruising to a series clinching 4-1 win over Georgia (21-20, 7-11 SEC) on Saturday afternoon.
“Centerfield is definitely a graveyard here, it felt pretty good,” Alonso said. “It’s been a goal of mine to hit one out of there.”
Sophomore Alex Faedo drew the start and followed up Logan Shore’s gem with a strong outing of his own. Georgia produced two base runners in the first inning with a single and a fielding error in right field by Ryan Larson, but Faedo worked out of the jam before retiring the next 11 batters in a row that he faced.
“Sometimes I don’t want the inning to be too long,” Faedo said of sitting in the dugout when his team is up to bat. “You always want to score but sometimes when you get in that groove you wanna keep going back out there. Everything feels like it’s working.”
Everything was working for Faedo, who threw a scoreless 5.2 innings with six strikeouts before giving way to Kirby Snead. Snead retired four straight before getting pulled with two on and two outs in the eighth. Dane Dunning stranded two Dawgs to get out of the jam, with a ground ball fielder’s choice.
Georgia loaded the bases with a double, walk and a fielding error to start the ninth, bringing the tying run to the plate in pinch hitter Patrick Sullivan. Florida and Kevin O’Sullivan turned to closer Shaun Anderson, who had thrown 19 pitches Tuesday, and 55 on Friday prior to this appearance.
Anderson cashed in one of Dunning’s runs with a sacrifice fly to right field but finished off the series with back-to-back strikeouts.
“It doesn’t get more difficult than that to be honest with you,” O’Sullivan said of Anderson’s save. “To come in, bases loaded, nobody out, tying run at the plate. Then you gotta face a left-handed hitter.”
The Gators’ felt the urgency to finish off the home series with a win, as the team will hit the road to SEC East leading South Carolina and Tennessee the next two weekends.
“We play nine of our last 12 games on the road,” said O’Sullivan. “This was a game that we needed to win, let’s be honest.”